The present invention relates to rolled dough products. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for cutting dough pieces from a rolled dough product in a dough processing line.
Food processing equipment, such as dough processors, are known. Similarly, conventional equipment exists for forming a rolled dough product. Such equipment typically provides a sheet of dough on a conveyor. Filling is applied to the sheet of dough and the dough is rolled with rolling equipment, such as Torpedo rollers. The rolled dough is provided as a continuous rolled dough cylinder, to a cutting apparatus which cuts the rolled dough cylinder to form a plurality of rolled dough pieces, each of which has filling rolled therein. The individual rolled dough pieces are then passed on to additional processing steps or are provided to a packaging apparatus which packages the rolled dough pieces in cans or other suitable packages.
Conventional cutting machines have included guillotine-type cutters. This type of cutter has a knife which is moved in a reciprocating manner as the dough cylinder travels beneath the knife. The knife cuts the dough into individual rolled dough pieces which are moved by an outfeed conveyor to the packaging machine.
The guillotine-type cutting apparatus is not suitable for use with many rolled dough products. The rolled dough products are simply too soft. The guillotine-type cutter smashes or crushes the dough pieces so that they are not easily packagable, and so that they are not easily used for their intended purposes. For instance, many such rolled dough products are intended to be put in a common household toaster. If they are crushed into irregular shapes, they tend to thicken and do not fit in such a toaster. In addition, guillotine-type cutters can tend to cause the cut dough pieces to be displaced on the take away conveyor. This requires manual handling or manipulation of the dough products to properly reposition them on the take away conveyor. However, since the dough products are so soft, manual handling of the dough products is very difficult, or impossible, if certain physical integrity of the dough product is to be maintained.
Further, in conventional dough processing equipment, the dough is moved continuously as it is cut. This can result in the dough pieces cut from the cylinder being wedge-shaped. In other words, since the dough is moving continuously, the guillotine cutter essentially cuts at an angle across the cylinder of dough resulting in a wedge-shaped piece. This wedge-shaped piece can present problems in packaging.
Also, in some conventional dough processing equipment, the guillotine cuts the dough on a flat, substantially horizontal surface (although some guillotine cutters cut horizontally). Thus, after the dough is cut into individual pieces, the pieces do not always lay down flat on the outfeed (or take away) conveyor. This can also cause problems during packaging. If the dough products are not lying flat on the outfeed conveyor, they must be manually repositioned on the conveyor so that they are lying flat. As discussed previously, this manual handling is undesirable.